JPL fired a lithium-fed MPD thruster five times at up to 120 kilowatts. Reaching one megawatt will require far more than multiplying the input power.
Far more people have travelled to space than to Challenger Deep, although comparing the two environments requires more than a simple pressure-versus-vacuum contrast.
Starship has moved multiple tonnes of oxygen between its own tanks, but its Moon and Mars architecture still depends on an unattempted vehicle-to-vehicle cryogenic refuelling campaign.
NASA's early-stage LEAP study asks whether small one-legged robots could jump through Enceladus's active jets and compare ocean-derived samples close to their source.
NASA funded a Phase I feasibility study of Helicity Space's pulsed fusion concept, not a flight engine or approved four-month crewed Mars mission.
Frozen regolith should accelerate, reflect and scatter moonquake waves in recognisable ways, allowing future surface arrays to prioritise deep lunar ice targets before drilling.
SpaceX has demonstrated the high-speed flight and re-entry at the centre of its 2017 Earth-to-Earth animation, but not the passenger system required around it.
Chang’e‑7’s delayed south-pole mission combines orbital mapping with a mini-flying probe designed to sample permanent shadow near Shackleton and measure water and its isotopes.
Starlab's three-level ground mockup is taking shape inside Building 9, turning NASA's planned shift from an agency-owned ISS to commercially operated stations into a human-scale test.
Across 13 integrated tests, Starship moved from breaking its own launch pad to guiding an intact upper stage into a distant ocean landing zone.
The striking percentages came from a 2020 nonlinear model, not a Mars crew. Its input data predated current resistance exercise and stopped at 228 days, far short of the 1,000-to-1,200-day profile it projected.
B1067's 36 flights show how Block 5 moved beyond its original ten-flight maintenance goal, but comparing the first stage with Discovery requires care about what each vehicle did.
Artemis II's first four-mile rollout took nearly 12 hours at no more than 0.82 mph. Orion later met Earth's atmosphere near 25,000 mph before its heat shield and parachutes slowed the crew for splashdown.
Voyager 2's saved watts preserve magnetic-field, plasma-wave and cosmic-ray measurements from beyond the heliopause, where no approved replacement mission is yet on its way.
SpaceX has already caught a Super Heavy booster. Catching the re-entering Starship upper stage would test whether its legless design can become a practical reuse system.
What separates those who reach the stars from those who give up after rejection—and what can it teach the rest of us about resilience.
